


Flicker

by asweallfallfromgrace



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, I Don't Even Know, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asweallfallfromgrace/pseuds/asweallfallfromgrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've always been overshadowed. Until now.</p><p>(or, the life of Jim Kirk.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flicker

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something I wrote in school when I was bored, it's not the best fic I've ever written but I like it :)

You're not even ten minutes old when he's dead, sacrificing his life for yours, your mother's, and 798 others'. You didn't realize it at the time, since you were a newborn infant, but she sobbed and clutched you to her chest as if you were a lifeline.

That experience never leaves your mind, being retold and retold many times over by nearly everyone you know. It's your demon.

You're eleven when she leaves for the three-year mission, kissing you on the forehead with an "I'll be back soon, Jimmy. Promise.". Only later, after the funeral, did you realize there were tears streaming down her face.

You're twelve when your brother takes off, claiming he can't stand it anymore, living with your stepfather. You beg and plead with him, since he's your only ally, but he's adamant.

You're thirteen when your stepfather gets fed up with you and sends you offplanet to live on a small agricultural world with your aunt. Needless to say, the words "Tarsus IV" will stay with you forever.

You aren't Jim Kirk anymore. You are JT, the leader of a rebellious group of children fighting to stay alive against a megalomaniac who has ordered you dead, and a major famine.

You still wake up from nightmares sometimes, biting your lip to hold in the scream stuck in your throat, and sweating with the humidity.

You're sixteen when you are released into Frank's care. Both you and your stepfather are utterly pissed off, and with the teenage hormones and mental scars, you are a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode.

You do, one day, when Frank's taunting you about your mother. Instead of hurting you like he would in the old days, he simply packs up his stuff and takes off, leaving you alone in the middle of rural Iowa.

You can care for yourself, so this is not a problem. You cope with the loneliness by reading anything you can get your hands on.

You have no idea what your life will be like. You don't know if you'll spend your life in this dump you call your home. You're terrified.

You're twenty-one when Captain Christopher Pike corners you in some bar after a drunken bar fight with four Starfleet cadets. He wants to recruit you.

It's the most ridiculous thing you've heard in a while, but you decide to give it a shot.

As you board the shuttle, you tell him "Four years? I'll do it in three."  
You're determined to prove yourself, to show the world you're more than a byproduct of the Kelvin incident.

The drunk, aviophobic man sitting next to you must think you're crazy, but after a rant, he introduces himself and passes you his flask, halfway filled with alcohol. You raise it at the man-Leonard McCoy-and respond in kind.

You mentally nickname him after something he said before. He apparently has nothing left but his bones.

You sit in companionable silence for the rest of the flight, aside from the fact that halfway to San Francisco, Bones vomits on your shoes, true to his warning.

You're twenty-two, and you're sitting in a Starfleet history class. The main topic of the day is Tarsus IV, analyzed and commented on multiple times. The professor's inflammatory opinions are completely uninformed. You bite your lip as you feel nausea roil in your stomach. You want to run out of the room, but you force yourself to focus on the back of the head in front of you, not taking notes. You have enough ways to pass the test already. Experience is the best teacher.

You're too pissed off to care when Bones comes back to the dorm to find you sprawled across your bed, head buried in a pillow. You're not crying, but you might as well have been.

Bones' doctor instincts kick in immediately, and you have to tell him you're fine.

You hate the fact that your annoyed words are punctuated with curses, and you forget that your friend doesn't know that you were one of the Tarsus Nine.

His grumpy exterior melts away when you explain JT's band of kids, hunted by the executioners and starving. He says nothing, perhaps he cannot, but you feel his hand on your back, rubbing soothing patterns into your cadet uniform.

For the first time, you realize that he's one of the first people to give a damn about you.

When you're twenty-four, your three years are up, and you made good on your promise to Pike. A Romulan named Nero forces the cadets out of your own disciplinary hearing and into their first real space mission.

Bones helps you stow away on the Enterprise, the 'Fleet's prized flagship. He thinks you're a goddamned dumbass, but he gives you a vaccine that allows him to bring you aboard the shuttle. You end up with a severe allergic reaction, but you're grateful.

The rest of the mission goes as smoothly as you'd expect, meaning not at all. The other ships were destroyed. Planet Vulcan is blown up. You're marooned on an ice planet by a green-blooded hobgoblin.

This whole fiasco apparently set off an alternate reality. That's odd to think about. What is your alternate self like?

The good thing about it is that you are promoted to Captain. You've got your own ship; with Spock, the Vulcan who dropped you on Delta Vega, as your first officer, and Bones as your CMO. Despite your uneasiness towards Spock at first, you couldn't possibly be more elated.

You're 26 when you die. Your original mission was to capture a superhuman, Khan, a terrorist who blew up Starfleet HQ. An encounter with the Klingons and a traitorous admiral later, you climb into the ship's damaged warp core to save the lives of everyone aboard.

When you emerge, flooded with radiation but triumphant, Spock is there. You're trapped, a thick layer of glass separating you, and you haven't felt this sort of awful terror since Tarsus. You manage to talk to Spock as the room begins to slowly spin. His hand is on the glass, and you want to grin. The pain is fading and your vision is darkening, but you place your hand on the cool glass as well. It's comforting.

As your vision finally goes black, you're dimly aware of your hand slipping limply off the glass.

At first, all you hear are familiar voices. Your parents, off the recording you've heard so many times. Sam, your brother. Pike, the man who persuaded you into joining Starfleet.

 _I dare you to do better_.

Your eyes snap open, and you turn your head to find, not Pike, but Bones. He looks exhausted, running a tricorder over you. He raises an eyebrow when he sees you awake, and simply tells you to stop being so melodramatic.

Spock visits soon, and you find that he, Bones, and Uhura found a way to save your life. Apparently, it was Khan's blood that revived you, healing the radiation poisoning.

Later, you ask more questions, but for now, you revel in the fact that you're alive, that they saved you.

\---

The recovery is long, painful, and most of all annoying as hell. The others help, though, in their own ways, and you realize that you don't need to do this alone.

You're 27, standing at the rechristening ceremony for the Enterprise. You make a quick speech, as reinstated Captain.

You look out over your crew. Many are missing, dead, but you confronted those demons long ago.

You look over at Bones and Spock, and Bones smirks back. He must know what you're thinking. The Enterprise crew has been allowed a five-year mission. Exploration, mostly. It's the first of it's kind.

You can't wait.


End file.
